Brian took a few more shots of his wooden boat with those slightly 'deform' PVC pirates, from some infant toy, I think, and I found another in my files, along with a couple of Guttenberg Project images, so quickly . . .
We had a swimming-pool at school, which was an old outdoor, unheated, circular thing with no shallow-end, and a low wall round it, with half-round bricks on top. It was freezing, even in the summer, except '76, it got quite pleasant in the heatwave, but started to go green and got over chlorinated, making everybody's eyes sting!
But we were allowed to sail/float boats in it, in break-times, supervised by the 'duty' teacher, and while the rich-kids all had big battery-operated things which inevitably filled with water and sank (to huge cheers)*, and would need to be recovered with the leaf-net, us poorer kids would have wooden vessels of various kinds, of which this is very reminiscent of some. I had a little green Star yacht, which actually worked when it was breezy, but otherwise just bobbed-about, becalmed!
* The biggest cheers were kept for when someone reached too-far trying to get their toy boat out, and fell in, fully clothed - usually several times a term! Always funniest in the Winter, when their teeth would chatter like a cartoon skeleton's, as they were marched off to Matron!
I don't know why I took this shot? But I did, I don't know if they came with the ship, I can't remember? Neither can I remember if I've Blogged it, nor do I have the time to check - I'm supposed to be getting changed for work! But it's the same figures, and I think four poses have appeared so far, in varied paint versions?
